In his Indianapolis debut, reliever Rick VandenHurk scattered five hits over five scoreless innings of relief while 1B Matt Hague provided all the offense the Tribe would need with a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the fourth as the Indians shut out the Norfolk Tides 1-0 in just 1 hour and 58 minutes in front of a crowd of 13,394 on Monday afternoon at Victory Field.

In his first day in an Indians uniform, VandenHurk struck out four and did not a walk a single batter over five solid innings to earn the victory.

VandenHurk came on in relief of Indians’ starter Justin Wilson who tossed three scoreless innings before exiting the contest in the top of the fourth. Tribe closer Doug Slaten finished off the Indians win for his team-leading seventh save of the.

Norfolk starter Steve Johnson was pinned with a tough luck loss as the right hander went a full eight innings and allowed only an unearned run. Johnson also struck out a season-high eight batters in his season-best eight innings of work, but still dropped to 1-3 on the season despite an excellent 2.74 ERA.

Despite collecting only three hits in the contest, the Indians would plate the only run they needed off Johnson in the bottom of the fourth. CF Gorkys Hernandez began what turned into the game-winning rally with a leadoff walk before a throwing error on a pickoff attempt by Johnson allowed Hernandez to advance all the way to third, where he would later score on Matt Hague’s sac fly.

The Indians now take to the road for an eight-game trip beginning with a contest in Lehigh Valley tonight at 7:05 p.m. LHP Jeff Locke is expected to make the start for Tribe, while the IronPigs are scheduled to counter with RHP Tyler Cloyd.